A federally funded study has paid women as much as $75 to
watch pornographic videos to determine "what types of audiovisual erotica
women find sexually arousing."

Women participating in the $147,000 study at Northwestern
University - funded through the federal National Institutes of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD) - were paid to "watch a series of commercially
available film clips, some of which will be sexually explicit, while we monitor
your body's sexual arousal," according to a flyer seeking volunteers for
the study.

Funding for the research comes from the National Institutes
of Health (NIH) budget, which has more than doubled in the past five years.

The two-year study began in September 2001 and is intended
to "assess the subjective and genital arousal of 180 lesbian, bisexual,
and heterosexual women as they watch erotic video clips of lesbian, gay, or
heterosexual interactions," primary researcher J. Michael Bailey explained
in a description of the project.

"We have some really great results on it, and I think
it's going to make a big splash," Mr. Bailey said of the research, which
he said he hopes to publish soon.

In 1991, Mr. Bailey made headlines as one of the first
researchers to say homosexuality is "substantially genetic," a
conclusion based on studies of twins.

Previous studies have shown that male sexual arousal is
"target specific" - that is, that heterosexual males respond to depictions
of females, while homosexual men respond to images of males, Mr. Bailey said.

"There has been inadequate attention to the question of
whether female sexual orientation is target specific," Mr. Bailey wrote in
a grant proposal. "However, some research... including our own preliminary data, suggests that target
specificity is much weaker for women than for men."

Early reports of the study, including in Northwestern
University's daily newspaper, indicate that women's responses to the
pornographic videos did not differ whether the images were of male-female
couples, lesbians, or homosexual men.

Rep. Dave Weldon, Florida Republican, cited the Northwestern
study as an example of misplaced research priorities, saying he asked NICHD
three years ago to study whether the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine
was associated with autism.

"The NIH couldn't find the money to look into this
relationship between kids with regressive autism and the mandatory MMR vaccine,
but they can pay people $150,000 to watch pornography," Mr. Weldon said.
"This is disgusting, and is a clear example of distorted priorities at the
NIH. The NIH message to parents of autistic children: Don't look to us for
help."

Funding for NIH has increased from $13 billion in fiscal
1998 to $27.2 billion sought by the Bush administration for the current fiscal
year. The White House proposed raising NIH funding by $3.7 billion a year,
which would be a 16 percent increase. That increase is reflected in the $27.2
billion NIH budget that has been approved by the Senate Appropriations
Committee, but House appropriators have yet to mark up the appropriations bill.

A spokesman for NICHD said the agency "covers all
aspects of human development."

"Our institute does things that are not directly
involved with children's health. ... So it's a misnomer to say that it's just
child health."

Reports of Northwestern's video sex research have prompted
some ridicule, landing the study a spot in the nationally syndicated "News
of the Weird" feature, but Mr. Bailey said it's no laughing matter.

"I think it's extremely important research, and I think
it's pathetic how skittish the government is about funding research about
sex," Mr. Bailey said.